Criminal Justice (International Cooperation on Electronic Evidence and Other Matters) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-17
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Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan

I move amendment No. 6:
In page 16, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following:
“(4) Such an annual report shall contain statistical data in relation to—
(a) the number of orders which were notified to the Director,
(b) the number of orders that were refused,
(c) the number of agreements entered into with service providers under subsection 40(1) and the status thereof by category,
(d) the number of instances whereby a court confirmed, set aside, replaced, or remitted either the decision or financial penalty of an adjudicating officer,
(e) the number of instances whereby the Director failed to sanction or refuse an order within the required timeframe, and
(f) the whole-time equivalent allocation, by cost, by role,
including the data category requested, the addressees, the situation (emergency case or not), grounds for refusal by category, number of court appearances, by country of origin.”.
Going back to our infamous committee meeting, which I know was before the Minister of State was appointed, we expected the meeting to be a short, technical briefing, but it raised serious concerns among members about legislation that we thought would be fairly straightforward. One question that was asked that could not be answered related to the potential scale of what this body could cost the Irish taxpayer annually. Somebody mentioned that we were kicking off with a €2.8 million budget this year, which would provide for 29 staff and associated costs. We also know that there are suggestions that we could end up with 150 staff in this body. We are told that the State is expected to receive in excess of 300,000 orders each year. We also know that the Department seemed to think, or at least provided evidence, that the impact on the courts would be minimal and the Courts Service itself has said that limited data is available about the number of cases that may arise after commencement. That is probably a diplomatic way of saying that we have not a clue. It goes on to suggest that the Department's projections may prove optimistic.
I am quite concerned that after the summer, when this comes into effect, combined with the as yet unknown outworkings of the reform to barristers' pay and so on, and when we have the EU Presidency putting pressure on the ability of gardaí to attend courts, we may be facing a substantial backlog in the courts, even worse than is already the case. Apart from all of these things, we know that many questions have not been answered but we do not know much else.
This amendment is intended to ensure that, at a minimum, the Oireachtas can be assured that there will be an annual report that will lay out how the office is functioning so that we can be kept abreast on an ongoing basis. Paragraph (c) is necessary so that we have a view of the number of instances where the office is engaging in what might be called corrective behaviour rather than levelling fines against service providers in breach of their obligations. Paragraph (d) would help to inform how the office is functioning, if its decisions are actually standing up to scrutiny and, crucially, the impact, if any, it is having on the Courts Service. Paragraph (e) would likewise provide a view about whether the office was meeting its obligations. Paragraph (f) is included to provide insight into the efficiencies and effectiveness of the office, how a large organisation like this can develop and the bill that the Irish taxpayer will be expected to foot for this facet of European co-operation. I can almost pre-empt that the Minister of State will say that this is not necessary and it is open to Members to submit parliamentary questions, but given the concerns about the potential annual costs of this new body, I believe it is important that, from day 1, we set out that the organisation will have to report on these matters in an annual report so that there can be transparency and scrutiny.
We know that there is an issue with the Minister of State's Department. Maybe the Minister of State can put it on her to-do list. It is what I would call the refusal and evasiveness of her Department when dealing with any parliamentary questions.
For virtually every body under the Department’s authority at this point, we get responses back to parliamentary questions saying that the Minister will not be held accountable and will not provide any information. It is not the same in every other Department. Many other Departments will provide information or, at a minimum, seek out information for the benefit of Deputies. However, the Department of justice has got to a point where it is just refusing point blank. I would say it probably makes as many refusals to parliamentary questions as it gives answers. I assume this body will be the same and the Department will again refuse to answer any parliamentary questions, so we will be dependent on the annual report to actually provide information not only to Members of the Oireachtas, but also to members of the public. Therefore, we need to ensure that the annual report is actually detailed and provides the type of information that would be useful for us in analysing the effectiveness of this body.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-17